Intel recruitment

The C.I.A.’s Business Is Secrets, but It Is Recruiting Spies in the Open

The C.I.A. has recruited at Ivy League schools, through Hollywood-produced television programs and even by judging school science fairs.

But the current era needs a modern recruiting drive, and on Monday, the C.I.A. unveiled its first television advertisement, which is aimed at streaming platforms like Hulu. The slick, advertising-agency-produced spot has the feel of clips from the television program “Homeland” — with a dollop of patriotism.

By some measures, the C.I.A. has little need for recruiting drives. Every year, thousands of applicants compete for hundreds of spots, according to current and former officials. In 2019, the agency had its best recruiting year in a decade. And traditionally it has been easier for the government to recruit during recessions.

Intel recruitment

French spy agency tells graduates they’re not cut out for espionage

French intelligence chiefs were delighted when 400 candidates responded to a recruitment campaign to find a new generation of spies this year.

The mood turned to dismay, however, when examiners read candidates’ answers to what were considered simple questions. The supposedly high-flying graduates applying for the secret service jobs proved to be more like Inspector Clouseau than James Bond.

Their grasp of geopolitics was as limited as their knowledge of espionage, according to a report published on the website of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, or DGSE. Even their spelling was awry, the report noted, adding that only 12 of the 14 posts on offer had been filled, with the other two left vacant for want of suitable candidates.

Intel recruitment

Baby Bonds: Britain's top spy reveals teenage school leavers are being recruited to MI6 after the intelligence service cut its minimum age to 18 as espionage adapts to the technological revolution 

Sir Alex Younger has today revealed how teenagers are being recruited to MI6 as it cut its minimum age to 18 to attract the 'best talent' from across the country.

This unprecedented move by the Secret Intelligence Services comes amidst a background of sweeping technological and geopolitical change.  

By lowering the minimum age of employment from 21, MI6 hopes to capture the hearts and minds of a generation savvy with modern technology. 

SIS invited 30 teenagers from inner London into its Vauxhall Cross HQ to encourage school leavers to apply for a career in British intelligence.

Intel recruitment

Exclusive: The FBI is running Facebook ads targeting Russians in Washington

The FBI is running ads on Facebook in the Washington DC area seemingly designed to target and recruit Russian spies as well as those who know about their work, CNN has learned.
One ad seen by CNN features a stock photo of a young woman at her graduation with her family. Russian text overlaid on the image reads, "For your future, for the future of your family."
Another shows a picture of a chess set, with Russian text that translates to, "Isn't it time for you to make your move?"
And another includes a drawing of a man walking over a bridge, with a Russian caption that reads, "Time to draw bridges."
Some of the Russian in the ads is awkwardly phrased or contains typos -- an indication they may not have been written by a native Russian speaker.
The ads direct to a page on the FBI Washington DC field office's website that has details in English and in Russian about the counterintelligence team and the address of the FBI field office in the city, "visit us in person," it reads.

Intel recruitment

China’s Spies Are on the Offensive

In early 2017, Kevin Mallory was struggling financially. After years of drawing a government salary as a member of the military and as a CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency officer, he was behind on his mortgage and $230,000 in debt. Though he had, like many veteran intelligence officials, ventured into the private sector, where the pay can be considerably better, things still weren’t going well; his consulting business was floundering.

Then, prosecutors said, he received a message on LinkedIn, where he had more than 500 connections. It had come from a Chinese recruiter with whom Mallory had five mutual connections. The recruiter, according to the message, worked for a think tank in China, where Mallory, who spoke fluent Mandarin, had been based for part of his career. The think tank, the recruiter said, was interested in Mallory’s foreign-policy expertise. The LinkedIn message led to a phone call with a man who called himself Michael Yang. According to the FBI, the initial conversations that would lead Mallory down a path of betrayal were conducted in the bland language of professional courtesy. That February, according to a search warrant, Yang sent Mallory an email requesting “another short phone call with you to address several points.” Mallory replied, “So I can be prepared, will we be speaking via Skype or will you be calling my mobile device?”

Intel recruitment

CIA tries to recruit potential operatives at Dulles, O’Hare during Christmas

Christmas is a peak travel period, and the highly secret CIA is apparently using it as an opportunity to help recruit potential agents and operatives among passengers at Dulles International Airport.

On its Twitter feed, the agency on Thursday addressed those “flying home for the #holidays” through the international terminals at both Dulles and Chicago’s O’Hare airport. It asked them to “be on the lookout for our recruitment campaign.”

The agency’s O’Hare recruitment poster, as shown on Twitter, advised passengers that the next time they passed through they could be “traveling to a faraway place to protect our nation.”

Presumably the pitch in the Dulles ad is similar.

The O’Hare poster adds: “It’s possible with the CIA.” It includes the agency seal, and it carries the address of what appears to be a CIA website. The poster also notes that U.S. citizenship is required.

Intel recruitment

Spies in the suburbs: Inside the CIA's secret defector unit

Years after defecting from Russia and resettling in the US, former KGB officer Alexander Zaporozhsky was lured back to the country he had once betrayed. The CIA warned him not to go.

Several senior intelligence officials tried unsuccessfully to dissuade Zaporozhsky, who had given the US valuable information that ultimately led to the capture of FBI agent and Russian spy Robert Hanssen, former officials familiar with the case told CNN.

But the Russian intelligence officer turned US asset insisted on returning to Moscow in 2001. He was arrested and imprisoned in Siberia for his connections to the West.

Zaporozhsky was ultimately released in 2010 and sent back to the US as part of a spy swap with Russia that also included Sergei Skripal, a former KGB colonel convicted of spying for Britain after admitting to the crime. The US released 10 individuals accused of operating a Russian spy ring in the US as part of the exchange.

Intel recruitment

MI6 airs TV ads to recruit more women and ethnic minorities

Britain's secret service will air its first recruitment advert on national TV later in a bid to encourage more women and ethnic minorities to join MI6.

The intelligence officers would help find new secret agents and check information gathered is legitimate.

The poisoning of a Russian ex-spy and his daughter in Salisbury resulted in a surge of applications, officials say.

But they want to broaden their reach, and say they want people who "challenge the status quo".

The latest official figures from March 2016 showed 24.1% of senior staff and 37.8% of non-senior staff were women.

There were also no British, Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) members among the senior ranks and they accounted for just 6.8% of the non-senior staff.

Intel recruitment

Real-life James Bonds raking in huge pay-offs before getting REHIRED

MI6 was made internationally famous by Bond films, currently with Daniel Craig as 007 and Naomie Harris as Moneypenny.

MPs have criticised the recruitment policy as “very poor value for money” and displaying “a lack of adequate skills planning”.

Parliament’s intelligence and security committee said: “While it may always be necessary to re-hire some former staff in exceptional circumstances this should be kept to a minimum given the potentially significant costs involved.’’

The cost of hiring consultants and contractors last year reached £1.2billion – a third of the combined budget of MI6, GCHQ and MI5.

On average they were earning £144,000, which is twice the annual figure for in-house staff.

The intelligence and security committee previously criticised an “expensive” redundancy exercise in 2011/12 during which 111 spy staff were paid to take early retirement.

Intel recruitment

MI6 opens doors to first school trip

MI6 has welcomed its first ever school trip as it broadens its recruiting pool for spies and tries to dispel the perception that staff are only chosen via a “tap on the shoulder” at Oxbridge colleges.

Seven prize-winning students from some of the most deprived areas of Wales met the chief of the secretive organisation during a careers trip to the capital.

The Secret Intelligence Service wants to attract a wider range of recruits, amid fears that potentially successful candidates may be not be considering a career within the service.

Intel recruitment

The CIA's Declassified Guide to What Women Want

Agency recruitment campaign warned that women “are intimidated by the secretive, aloof image of the CIA”

After coming across what appeared to be an actual in-house CIA poster depicting lady agents as hard-boiled, gun-toting, detective novel dames MuckRock user Runa Sandvikrequested the agency’s recruitment material aimed at women.

A year later, they delivered.

While the posters are pretty amazing - especially when they start devolving into office-speak buzzword-salad …

Intel recruitment

Have you got what it takes to be a spy?

Historically, it's been a man's world. When the intelligence agencies were set up, in the early 20th Century, recruits came from the military.

And then, Prof Glees says, in World War 2, it was decided that the intelligence services needed to be intelligent. That was when tapping up the brightest students from universities began - and of course at that time it was mostly men.

But it's changed since then. A recent government report on the issue says that last year 41.6% of MI5's workforce was female, with a target of 45% by 2021.

Machon says that in her time there, in the early 1990s, it was 51% women and 49% men. She wonders whether the TV series Spooks, which ran from 2002 to 2011, may have deterred women from applying because it showed MI5 officers' work as so dangerous, much more so than the reality.

Intel recruitment

Spy chiefs' Mumsnet mission to recruit Jane Bonds

British intelligence agencies no longer insist new recruits have a university degree and favour "emotional intelligence" instead as part of a plan to recruit more middle-aged Mums, it has emerged.

MI5, MI6 and GCHQ have all used Mumsnet to find new female spies, dubbed Jane Bonds, while some agencies are targeting older women working in social care who may be bored with their careers.

It marks the first time the intelligence agencies have admitted to using female-friendly websites to recruit more women, as it emerged local newspapers are also being targeted by spy agencies to get a better balance of staff from both genders.

A new report on plans to rebalance the intelligence workforce states that the security services are looking for women with "high emotional intelligence, rather than focusing on standard qualifications" and are keen to demonstrate the family-friendly nature of working as a spy.

Intel recruitment

James Bond lacks the “emotional intelligence” to get a job as a real-life spy

Britain’s Secret Intelligent Service, the spy agency better known as MI6, has launched its latest recruitment campaign looking for people with “emotional intelligence” just as the new James Bond film, Spectre, is released. But it turns out its most famous son wouldn’t make the cut.

A MI6 source tells Buzzfeed: “They want people with a real passion for human interaction, understanding others, and dealing with the sometimes complex nature of human relationships.” Loners like Bond would “probably not be successful in joining SIS, if he were to apply.”